


100. broken wings

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [78]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Gen, HOW MANY ANGEL AUS CAN I DO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah sets out to kill an angel.





	100. broken wings

**Author's Note:**

> [warnings: blood, gore]

Sarah has been tracking the angel for three days, now, and it’s starting to get old. Angels usually die fast. Angels will come trusting to your knife, easy, because they still believe in the idea of believers. Angels still think that humanity is something to be loved – like humanity didn’t decide that angels are worth more in pieces than in concept. You can sell an angel feather for a thousand dollars, if you get the right buyer. Angel bone? Angel _heart?_ You’d never go hungry again.

And this one is Sarah’s. Sarah prayed her down from heaven herself, all pure of thought and pure of heart and shit like that, and when the angel came Sarah got her knife and—

Missed. Somehow. She carved open a chunk of wing (bad news) (whole wings sell for millions) (angel blood spilled, that’s a huge loss) and the angel _screamed_ and then somehow managed a staggering flight away. Sarah has been tracking it by its blood, golden and shining. It can’t have that much blood to lose. It must, by now, be running out of time.

It leads her through back alleys, over rooftops. Sometimes she can see it in the distance but it’s somehow still managing to flap enough to keep the lead. It must be getting tired. If it would just slow down, Sarah would be kind enough to let it die.

She jumps down from the roof towards the splattering of gold blood and white feathers – pauses to pocket the feathers – heads through the open wooden doors smeared with golden fingerprints.

In the church, the organ is playing. No one is sitting at it. The song it’s playing sounds like crystal spires and ice-cold water. Sarah still has her knife. She isn’t thinking about it. There are some things you have to do, and if the angel asked Sarah would explain: she would tell it the kind of life she could live, it if would bare its throat for her.

It’s collapsed in front of the altar. Light trickles through the stained glass and bleeds it rainbow.

“Sarah,” it whispers, voice slurred, bleeding gold. “Please. I can see a light in you. You are so good, but you won’t be if you do this.”

“Shut up,” Sarah hisses at it, voice wavering, and flips it over with her boot. It cries out when it rolls over its own gouged-open wing; the feathers are bent, the muscle, the bone. It will never fly again. Its eyes are very wide, a startling greenish-gold.

“I love you,” the angel tells her, sounding very soft and very sincere.

“Shut _up_ ,” Sarah says, only it leaves her mouth as a sort of desperate whine and echoes off the wooden timbers of this building. The organ is weeping, weeping.

“I do,” the angel tells her, and it sits up; Sarah brandishes the knife at it, but it sits up anyways. Then it stands. One of its wings arches over them, holy and holy. Underneath the white feather dome Sarah feels the sort of safety you only feel when you’re small, and held in the arms of someone who loves you. She wants to reach out and let the angel hold her. It understands. It forgives her. This is all so very clear, like it’s telling her, only it isn’t. It’s something in the angel’s eyes. Some deep clear kindness.

“Sarah,” it says again. “My Sarah. Kind and brave and strong. I _know_ you. There are other ways for you to help your family, you know this. Kinder ways. Ways that won’t burn you up from the inside.”

Sarah’s breath is one long ragged shudder, clawing in and out of her lungs. She stumbles a step forward, and then another, and then the angel is holding her and everything is alright. It’s all alright. The angel smells like pollen and fresh-baked bread and a cat’s fur in the sun, and – everything is alright.

She shoves her knife into its belly.

The angel chokes, one desperate surprised sound, and pulls Sarah closer. Her nose is buried in the golden cloud of its hair, and she can’t help whispering _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_ as she twists the knife. “This isn’t what I wanted,” she says, weeping, getting snot all over it like it isn’t some sort of blasphemy. “You’re gonna bleed. I didn’t want you to bleed like this. It was supposed to be easy, I don’t, I don’t know why you didn’t make it _easy_ —”

“Shh,” sighs the angel, “shh, shh. I forgive you.”

“Do you,” Sarah says desperately.

“Yes,” the angel says. “Always. Shh, Sarah, shh, it’s all going to be alright.”

It’s slumping towards the floor, wing collapsing to join its twin. Circus tent coming down. Show’s over, folks, and the angel and Sarah slowly slide to the floor together. Sarah doesn’t let go of it. Sarah holds it tightly, desperate, terrified.

The angel fumbles clumsy dying hands to Sarah’s skull, and with one last surge of effort leans up to press a kiss to her forehead. Sarah feels, with a sudden sharp spike of clarity, that everything is solved – that all her problems are over, that she is at peace. And then the angel is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! For every comment an angel gets its wings, and the angel is Helena, so...feel some motivation.


End file.
